


The Past That Haunts

by Takada_Saiko



Series: At the End of All the Lies [9]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Future Fic, Keen2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 18:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4971364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacob dreams about the past and Liz tries to help him sort through it for their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past That Haunts

******The Past That Haunts**  


He had always known that it should have meant more than it did to him. He had watched the man tumble down the stairs, rolling head over heels all the way to the bottom, and he had heard the crack along the way. By fourteen he knew the sound of bones breaking.

Even then he had been sure that there should have been more than a dull sort of satisfaction in the fact that Tony Douglas wouldn't be able to break any more of _his_ bones and that the old drunk had gotten what he deserved. It had taken a moment of staring before his mind had finally come to grips with the fact that even though he understood that, no one else would. Jacob Phelps had escalated his usual delinquent activities of skipping school and landing himself into fights to murder. That's how it would be seen. They wouldn't care about the fact that Douglas had probably left his wife in a heap before coming after his foster son or that he'd beaten the hell out of him several times since he'd come to live there two years before.

So Jacob had run. He had grabbed the dead man's wallet and keys and took the Pontiac in the garage, and he had run. If it was wrong or right or somewhere in between, he was likely the worst person to ask. It had needed to be done to survive, so he has done it.

That's why these types of dreams caught him off guard. He knew that's what it was, but he couldn't shake himself free of it. All the emotions he _should_ have felt at the time felt like they were crashing over him, a tidal wave intent on pulling him under and drowning him. He didn't understand why though.

"Jacob?"

His name cut through the terror and he sat up, pulled out of the nightmare violently, and found himself sitting in his bed in his own home, Liz slowly reaching out to touch his arm from her place next to him. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, but he finally drew one in that helped to steady him a little and he leaned in as Liz carefully wrapped her arms around him. "You okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," he breathed after a moment. "Just a dream."

"Sounded like a nightmare," his ex wife murmured. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. "You want to talk about it?"

Jacob shook his head. "No."

"Do you need to talk about it?"

He opened his mouth and then closed it before another no could escape. Liz did her best not to profile him, but the more she learned, the more her nature took over on it. She was trying to be respectful of it, but he'd never really been very good at sharing. He had a hard enough time sifting through his own emotions, much less explaining them to someone else.

Jacob swallowed hard. "It's stupid. It doesn't make sense."

"Talk to me, then? Maybe we can figure it out?"

She was trying so hard to help him that he found the words tumbling out before he'd even given himself permission. "It was the night I killed Douglas."

"Your foster father?" He nodded and watched her frown in the darkness of the room. "Babe, you were fourteen. If it hadn't left an impression on you-"

"That's it," he cut in, falling back against the pillows. "It's not... I don't know, it's never been a big deal. I did what I had to to survive. I've never been torn up about it."

Liz shifted and leaned back with him. She was steadily working with him to try to understand where he was coming from on things and he had been trying to find the words to describe it. It wasn't that he didn't feel things. They were often just muted versions of what others felt, as far as he could tell. Where many people might recoil from the act of murder, even if there was a reason behind it, he only had the acknowledgment that that was how others reacted and how society expected him to react. If it was necessary, he had no personal qualms with it in most cases. In the same way, he didn't enjoy it particularly. He had always been more comfortable doing what others were not.

Like with everything, though, Liz had introduced changes. "Babe," she said softly, moving so that they were nearly touching and she propped herself up on her elbows so she could look at him. "A lot has happened. You've been hiding behind other people's emotions for more years than you haven't. It's only been the last few months that you've really started to figure out who _you_ are. Maybe with trying to get back into the adoption process - with a kid with a similar background to yours - it's stirred some stuff up."

Jacob loosed a breath and found he couldn't quite look away from her.

Liz offered him a smile. "What I'm saying," she said, leaning over and pressing a quick kiss to his lips, "is that this is part of a learning experience most people go through much younger. You're sorting through how you feel about it."

"I didn't care at the time either," he argued. Sometimes he wondered if Liz was building him up to be a better man than he was capable of being.

"Honey, you were a teenager that had been abused by the man. It's not like there's a straightforward reaction that you should have had." She leaned in and Jacob's eyes fluttered closed as she kissed him. He felt her hand on his face and his own traveled up her side until his fingers were tangled in her hair. The kiss deepened and for a moment, quieting his thoughts enough to gain some perspective.

When they broke, he didn't dare give himself a chance to think the words over and back away from them. "What if I screw this up?" he asked softly. "Matt is like me. I don't know what I'm feeling half the time, how can I help him?"

She watched him carefully. "You weren't worried about that the first time we tried to adopt... Were you?"

Jacob grimaced. "Tom Keen was a better man than I am," he admitted softly.

Liz laughed and his expression only made her giggle harder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She kissed the tip of his nose playfully. "You're being honest. I shouldn't tease you, but, babe, all those good things _are_ you. You're great at reading people, and when you don't know, you ask. Do you know how many people actually do that?"

He blinked at her, balanced precariously between being offended and taking her words as the compliment that he thought they were supposed to be meant as.

"Not many," she answered her own question. "It was one of the many little quirks that I loved about Tom. It hasn't faded. You still do that. Same with so many little things. You know that everyone has to learn what works best, right? Just because you have to work a little harder and you process it a little differently doesn't mean you have to be the perfect soldier Bud tried to make you into. I know you, Jacob Phelps. You care about people and you feel things, you just bury it a little deeper than most. If I was raised like you were, I probably would too."

"Because you never bury how you're feeling," he murmured, a small smile curling his lips.

"Nope. Never," she teased and he leaned up to kiss her. "I love you. Tom. Jacob. Whatever you want to call yourself, I love you."  

"I love you too," he answered, voice rough with emotion.

"Are you going to be okay with this? With Matt?"

He nodded, suddenly feeling the hour. "As long as I have you there to help balance me out."

"Only if you'll do the same for me," she said and nestled in with him, her head fit in the crook of his shoulder and he could feel her warm breath against his skin.

Jacob reached up, his fingers catching hold of her hair. "Deal."

"You going to be okay to meet his foster parents tomorrow?"

There it was. Jacob had to give it to the lateness of the hour that he hadn't put the fact that they were meeting with the couple the next day together with a nightmare about his own last set of foster parents. Liz hadn't missed it though. "Yeah."

"Leah won't move forward until she meets you too," Liz pointed out, "and they're going to be a big part of what sways this one way or the other."

"I know, Liz," he huffed and she wrapped an arm around his middle.

"No pressure."

"Uhhuh."

"Just be yourself."

"Terrible advice, babe."

She laughed and tightened her hold on him. "I didn't mean you should say everything that crosses your mind," she teased him. "Read the situation. You'll win her over."

Jacob shifted a little. "I feel like you're saying I have an uphill battle in this one. Anything I should know?"

"She just thinks it's weird she hasn't met you yet."

"Does she know...?" Jacob tapered off. Technically his past and his involvement with Bud's organisation was classified now. His past was a two edged sword with trying to adopt Matt, who had been in Bud's school when it fell. It was a delicate situation at best.

"A little. As much as she can. She knows you grew up in the foster system."

Jacob sighed softly.

"This is going to work."

He nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding her close. "I know," he agreed and kissed the top of her head. She was entirely invested in this now, even with all of his warnings of caution. If he were honest, he wasn't far behind her on this. He had spent his childhood being taught he could do without a family, without stability, but now that's all he wanted. If he had a read on Matt, that's what the kid wanted too. He wasn't sure what kind of father he was going to make, but he'd give everything he knew how to if it would save Matt from traveling down the road he had traveled. They could give the kid a second chance.

"Love you," Liz whispered sleepily.

"You too," he answered. It was going to be okay. This time it would work.  It had to.

****  


* * *

Notes: I'm really interested to see if we get a better view into how Jacob sees the world this season. Red described Bud's recruits as having 'sociopathic tendencies', but that could mean so many things. It'll be interesting to see where they take it. 


End file.
